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Apple Under Pressure As Samsung Preps Foldable Screens For 2012

Mock-up of a Samsung phone with plastic-based OLED screen folded over the sides; via Nomura Research

The world’s biggest smartphone makers were all trying to out-shine their competitors at this year’s Mobile World Congress, with most new devices boasting the same, large, flat screen with a button or two. Differentiation was in the details. To be among top dogs like Samsung and the increasingly-popular ZTE, phones needed a quad-core processor, shiny AMOLED screen and to be slim and light.

Apple was the elephant in the room. It refused to exhibit, even though its iPhone and iPad were top-selling devices. But both Apple and its competitors may be under pressure to leap to the next level of hardware in 2012, and not just by being more slim or more shiny.

Samsung is using its plastic-backed AMOLED devices to make phones that are lighter, thinner and include “foldable screens,” according to Richard Windsor, a senior technology analyst at Nomura Group.

Nomura’s analysts in Asia have said they expect to see Samsung “apply plastic substrate-based, bendable or curved displays for smartphones from [the second quarter of] 2012,” and cite equipment manufacturers in Korea as their sources.

The analysts added in a recent note that the first example of this technology would not be in a smartphone screen that folded in half (though that may come later in 2013 in a clam-shell like device), but in a screen that folded over the edges of a phone, replacing the usual screen border or “bezel” so that the display continued onto the sides (see image above). The display would be “unbreakable and increases the exceptionally slim form-factor,” they said.

“We expect Samsung to mass produce such panels for smartphones in 2012, which we believe would be more popular that the current OLED display equipped in SEC’s Galaxy S II,” Nomura’s analysts said, adding that the use of film-coating technology and tempered plastic would reduce the weight of Samsung’s tablet computers by 30%.

“Plastic displays will change the perception of handsets and tablet PCs in terms of design, thickness, and weight, and this would clearly differentiate Samsung’s products from others, in our view,” said the analysts. “This is why we like Samsung.”

Example of seamless foldable display from Samsung; via PhysOrg.com

This isn’t the first talk of foldable screens from Samsung. Last year rumors swirled that Samsung was working on a bendable phone called the Galaxy Skin, to be released in the second quarter of 2012. Samsung has denied the product exists; the images of the branded prototype came from a design student’s conceptual project.

However Samsung has said publicly that it is working on “next-generation technologies such as foldable, flexible and transparent displays.” And already a year ago at the Consumer Electronics Show 2011, it showed off bendable AMOLED screens that were 0.3mm thick and 4.5 inches across. Later in May, it was reported that researchers from the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology had built a prototype display that folded in the middle without a crease.

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The question isn’t so much “is the tech doable”, the real question is “is it usable”, “does it make my experience better”? So how does having a screen that “wraps” around the edges of the device make it “better”? If the touch sensitive portion also wraps, then you have the issue of having it figure out when you’re just holding the device vs wanting to interact with an edge. If it doesn’t, then it becomes informational only and what meaningful info could you put there? A foldable screen imho is far more interesting.

But in the end, Apple already sources screens from Samsung (though obviously not oled), saying that they’re “behind” comes with the built in implication that no matter how much Apple would pay that Samsung will say “no” to supplying them with any new whiz bang screen tech, and up to this point, they’ve not shown any inclination to do that.

Obviously this is a mockup. Maybe samsung is just getting rid of all their buttons and using flat touch surfaces for volume control and power. Just an idea based on what i see. Icons on the side doesnt seem usable to me at this point. But who knows what the whole product really is. Maybe this is a bunch of BS like a lot of speculations abouut apple as welll.

Bitwrangler – Samsung seems pretty comfortable with introducing weird, new hardware into market – the Galaxy Note ‘phablet,’ and the Samsung Beam, a smartphone with a powerful projector, are just a couple of recent examples. Customers are still deciding if either of those are really “usable.” It’s risky and bold strategy, but it certainly makes the market more interesting. And as you say, if bendy screens become wildly popular, Samsung will suddenly have a lot of extra clout over Apple.

What exactly is risky or bold about introducing a dozen “weird, new” devices? It’s expensive, but not risky. If anything, it’s their extreme risk aversion that’s driving them to this strategy: try everything and see what sticks, rather than picking one thing and putting the whole weight of the company behind it.

It takes a lot of courage to say “we’re only going to make one model”. It doesn’t take much courage to say “we’re going to keep adding models until something happens to work”.

It’s like buying 100 lottery tickets. It’ll cost you, and there’s a chance it’ll pay off big, but at a random game like the lottery, that chance is really tiny. Nobody describes buying 100 lottery tickets as “risky” or “bold”. You don’t get to be #1 at anything by luck.

Are those applications icons on the side? I can’t imagine why a user would want something like that. I does look nice and would be useful if you just put things like the time or weather on the side, but that’s about it.

constableodo – Yes, the mock-up from Nomura shows applications icons, but I agree it would make more sense to have static info like date/time/weather. If the sides were touch-sensitive that probably would make the device a lot more complicated.

I would think that touch sensitive sides are a prerequisite to make this technology work. The software must know whether your tapping the screen or just holding the phone. Having the touch sensor extend around the edges makes it possible for it to more accurately “see” what you’re doing. If this is how it will work, I’m not even sure if they will actually have a the actual screen go around the edges, but probably only the capacitive touch sensor.